Editorial - Maybe more efficient garbage routes can be the start of a trend

Wednesday

Mar 31, 2010 at 12:01 AM

The $260,000 the city of Wilmington plans to save by streamlining its trash collection routes will not plug a $7 million budget shortfall, but every bit helps.Perhaps even more important than the dollar amount is the message it sends that the city is serious about running the smartest, most efficient operations possible.No one is going to be happy with a tax hike, but if city leaders believe one is necessary, they have to convince taxpayers they are getting the biggest bang for their buck.Unfortunately, because of a mix of deserved and undeserved criticism, the effectiveness of government bureaucracies is often questioned.But despite some shortcomings – many of which are to be expected in providing complex services to tens of thousands of customers – we get pretty good services at a decent price from our municipal governments.Many people think nothing of paying $100 or more for monthly cable or cell phone service, but at the same time fuss about the cost of having water collected from a river, treated to make it safe and then having it pumped to your home miles away and available 24 hours a day. The same is true for trash collection, police and fire service, roads, etc.While we shouldn’t take these services for granted, municipalities, too, should not take it for granted that they can spend freely or be content with operating inefficiently.Municipal governments need to operate in a no-frills, super-productive, cost-efficient manner; this is a critical piece of the puzzle, ensuring that is what’s portrayed to taxpayers. (Municipal workers seen standing around idle at a job site can cause more bad PR than a financial scandal).Many local governments already have had their hands forced on budget cuts. Wilmington alone has cut $6 million in the past couple of years, and more cuts might be ahead, though they will become increasingly hard to find without having a direct impact on services.If it is necessary to raise taxes, leaders need to be able to justify every penny that’s being spent and assure taxpayers that every efficiency is being exploited.Municipalities cannot operate like a private business. They serve very different purposes. But taxpayers need to know that, at the end of the day, our local governments are being run as lean and efficient as the best-run private company.The new trash routes are a small – but good – start. Now let’s see more.